


spirits long past

by cassleia



Series: a rebellion happens in stages [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Cassian Andor-centric, Gen, Ghosts, cassian week 2020, guerrillero espacial, mentions of grief/mourning, vaguely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:00:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25448758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassleia/pseuds/cassleia
Summary: Cassian is haunted by his past in more ways than one, but perhaps this time it is not so bad to remember.
Series: a rebellion happens in stages [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1843261
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	spirits long past

Cassian carries ghosts with him wherever he goes. His mother, his father, aunts, uncles, comrades long lost. He thinks perhaps it is fitting to hear the echoing tones with his hand on a trigger and even in the sloping halls of a Rebellion base. Maybe he is creating ghosts here that will haunt someone else. 

Some of his ghosts are of his own making. He hears the voices of informants lost, whether to Imperial hands or his own, quicker ones was a matter of who it was. They seemed to have minds of their own, and whether they are pieces of his own fractured mind or he is truly haunted Cassian can’t say. 

Cassian’s most familiar ghosts carry him through the longest of nights. They are voices he has ached to hear for far too long. His father’s voice is faded, time weathering his recollections of Jerónimo Andor. His memories are colored by the lens of childhood, even as unconventional as his upbringing was. He often wonders if the man he’s become is someone his father would have been proud of. 

His mother’s voice is particularly poignant. A rebel in her own right, what she might have said to his face only three years ago echoes in the wind around his ears. Her loss still hits him on the long nights, that ache that he doesn’t think will ever go away. 

He hears Marí’s voice almost as clearly, though it has been quite a bit longer since he has heard her in person. Leaving Fest had been for the best he reminds himself, though at times he still feels as if he’s abandoned an age-old fight. Marí is the one who reminds him that the galaxy is not his alone to take the burden of, no matter how much it may feel that way. 

Even then, she doesn’t relent in her encouragement for him to push forward when he feels he can give no more. She reminds him this is not a burden he can take alone. It is those nights, when her voice still rings in his ears, that he ventures out, seeking the company of the living once more. 

The Pathfinders are a more rowdy group than he is used to, but not quite on the level of some of the pilots. Kes Dameron claps him on the shoulder and offers an easy smile. For a few moments, these nights Cassian’s mind is quiet. He sheds the personas he’s put on, even if he isn’t quite sure where they begin and the man he truly is ends. 

Many of these agents recall him from their early days. Cassian is known for pulling recruits into the Alliance with grandiose ideas, returning from more than one mission up a body. Draven offers indecipherable looks as always. When around, Senator Organa gives a fond look he doesn’t know quite what to do with. 

The nights when not even the presence of others can chase away the ghosts are the most interesting. Cassian has Dameron’s booming voice in one ear, regaling their table with tales of his latest mission exploits. In the other, Marí laughs. 

Cassian will always wonder how she managed to do so even on the darkest of days. With Dameron’s tale taking on increasingly improbable turns, he thinks he might just understand. 

Cassian feels he has one foot firmly planted in the past. Perhaps that is why the ghosts seem so comfortable in his presence. While his mind lingers so far in the past, his body is content living in the present, he moves almost without thinking. It is the beauty of a life like his, that he does not spare a thought to cleaning his blasters. 

Instead, the voices that resound in his mind have his attention. Cassian swings the fragile line between past and present, present and future, never quite inhabiting any one era. 

At times, he feels as if he is going insane, straddling the fragile line between reality and fantasy. Past and present swirling in his mind like a cloud of hazy memories. In a way, it is a buffer from the harsh reality he inhabits.

His father’s voice is the oldest one he has heard, it comes now only in the direst of times. When he is up against a wall with Imperial guns trained on him. _“Think, mijo” _he implores, pushing, not for the strongest or quickest solution, but rather the smartest. It is one of the things Cassian knows best about his father.__

__The voices are sometimes the only thing to carry him through dark nights. The ones when a chill sets into his bones, far worse than any windswept Fest nights. This time the chill isn’t from cold, but rather a sobering reminder of where he has landed._ _

__Quiet nights, or what should have been quiet are the worst, in trying times there is nothing to block his mind from lingering in the past._ _

__Cassian has often questioned a belief in the Force. Even these voices do not seem to constitute enough of a reason to believe. Belief in the Force is something that seems so pervasive, even among the often pessimistic outlook of the Alliance. Cassian’s life has been one of loss, and not only that of other people, though that has been impactful._ _

__Cassian’s home is there, lightyears away, and even more inaccessible than the distance could ever make it. It is almost more tragic than if he had never had one, Cassian had known what it was to be loved without bounds and lost that._ _

__If there is a Force it does not take his wishes into account. He wishes he could have the same unflinching belief in an external actor that some of his comrades do, but the only things that had ever protected him had been his own people, or his actions._ _

__Cassian has faith in people, and their propensity for goodness, even though his experiences could, in fact, should have dictated otherwise. It is a cruel galaxy, and without that hope, there would be little to go on for._ _

__Cassian Andor had tried death on for size before, each time expecting it to embrace him in turn like an old friend. Each time it had pinched just a bit too much at the corners. As if it were the too-small hand me down shoes he had often worn._ _

__It wasn’t that he wanted to die, Cassian felt he had more to offer the galaxy, and his work was as of yet undone. If that mission culminated with his death then so be it, he wouldn’t be the first or the last. Others had given so much more than a life. _He _had already given so much more than his life.___ _

____If anyone noticed Captain Andor muttering to himself at times, they didn’t say anything. It was a war and everyone was entitled to their idiosyncrasies. Cassian may not have wanted to die, but death followed him wherever he was, like a scythe hanging heavy over his head._ _ _ _

____The voices of his past had much to do with that, a connection to his past that he couldn’t shake. Or, maybe he could have, but he wasn’t precisely looking to break that chain._ _ _ _

____Cassian could live with these ghosts, could live _for _them, lives cut short until he was the only one left. He would see this work to the end of the line or die trying.___ _ _ _

______If he had to fracture himself to pieces to do so, well he was willing to make sacrifices that most others would turn their noses up at._ _ _ _ _ _


End file.
